Sunday, July 18, 2010

Honduras - June 18th

On Friday we travelled from Copan to Ocotopeque, Kyle's site. This was the busito that we took from Copan to Santa Rosa, and then we transferred to another bus there to Ocotopeque. It was about a 3 hour ride from Copan to Santa Rosa, and the bus would make various stops for people to get on and off. Throughout the trip, there were probably about 50 people packed into this little busito.

These were some school kids I saw while riding in the bus. They were all carrying large rocks down the street to their school.Once we arrived in Ocotopeque, we took moto taxis to Kyle's house. No matter where you get picked up or where you want to go, it is always 6 Limps for a moto taxi (remember, 20 limps equals $1). I was in a moto taxi here, and we were on our way to Kyle's house. We followed these cattle most of the way.After we got settled in Kyle's house, he and I walked down to the market to get some food for lunch and dinner. This is the vegetable market.We got enough vegetables to make a veggie stir fry for dinner (for all 4 of us) and we only spent $1.50.On our way back, we saw this little boy running around with no shoes on playing with those two water bottles he has in his hands. Kyle said "Hola William" and he came running over. Kyle talked to him for a while - William thought that I was his novia (as did a lot of the kids there) but he explained to him that I was his hermana. Kyle also gave William 20 Limps so he could go get some food. Once William ran off, Kyle was telling me that William's parents don't really take care of him. He said that William never wears shoes and is always hungry. William also says that he doesn't go home some nights - he will just sleep in the park.We saw these kids on our walk back to Kyle's house - they all came running to Kyle and said "Hola, Carlos!" "Kyle" is difficult for them to say, so he tells them that his name is Carlos. They had a pet pigeon - they offered for me to hold it but I told them I would just take their picture with it.

A lot of the families would just sit out in front of their house like this all day. Their houses are so small and they don't have AC so it is better outside. This family just had a dirt floor inside their house.Once we got back to Kyle's house we had lunch out on his patio. Kyle says that he does a lot of sitting on this patio.Mom and Dad took a nap after lunch, and Kyle and I were hanging out outside. These kids came up and were talking to Kyle. They said that they had some firecrackers so we told them to go their house to get them and that they could set them off. My dad jumps at loud noises, so Kyle and I knew that this would be quite funny. They set it off, and sure enough, my dad jumped out of bed from his nap :)I also wanted to see what it is like to cut the grass "Honduran style" - i.e. with a machete. I put on Kyle's boots and took a couple of wacks at the grass. I would rather push a lawnmower. Kyle said that he will sometimes hire someone to cut his grass because in order to do the entire front and back yard it usually takes 8 hours (his backyard is not that big). And it only costs Kyle 150 Limps to hire someone.Later in the afternoon, Kyle took us to meet Bertita who is the librarian that Kyle works with.We also went by the school where Kyle does the World Map. He is working with the sixth graders to draw the entire map of the world on this wall and then they are going to paint it. They were still in the process of drawing all the countries in.After we were done at the world map, we took a moto taxi back to Kyle's house. There was only one around so Kyle asked the driver if we could all get in one. It is illegal to have someone sit in the front seat with the driver, and there is only room for 3 people in the back. The driver said ok, so I hopped in the front with the driver and everyone else got in the back. Two seconds later the policia were next to us and they pulled us over. The driver went up to talk to them and then Kyle decided to go up there as well. Kyle told the police that his family was there visiting him and that they didn't speak Spanish so we were trying not to get separated. The policia let the driver off the hook. If he had gotten a ticket, it would have been $50, which would have been about a week's worth of wages.When we got back to Kyle's house, these kids were all outside playing with this turtle. I assume they just found it somewhere. The kids were always outside playing together. None of them have TVs or Wii's to keep them inside.We then walked to Central Park (yep, Ocotopeque does have a Central Park but it is much different than the one in NYC) to watch Kyle play basketball with some guys.Kyle organized a basketball team and signed them up for a league. They went 7-1 for the season so they did pretty well. Although Kyle is much taller than the Hondurans so that helped I am sure. My whole family was quite tall in Honduras - we got a lot of stares walking around town (especially in Ocotopeque) but I guess the people are not used to see 4 big white gringos walking together :)We ended our night with baleadas in the park. A baleada is just a tortilla with beans inside (and eggs if you want). William was hanging out in the park so he had dinner with us. He said The Lord's Prayer in spanish and sang us the Honduran national anthem. We were teaching him some english - he had "Hello, how are you" down pretty well.